Chelsea kicked off their FIFA Club World Cup adventure with an opening group stage fixture against Los Angeles FC on Monday night.
After a difficult few years things are looking up for the Blues, who have not won the Premier League tittle for eight years.
The change of ownership only heightened such feelings of longing as not only was the club kept from top spot, but extensive reshuffling behind the scenes prompted instability as both managers and players came and went. Champions League football - long recognised as the bare minimum at Stamford Bridge - went missing for two seasons. So too did the collection of silverware.
Enzo Maresca, helped by a calming of the waters, has reset this in this just one season in charge, overseeing Chelsea's qualification for UEFA's top competition whilst winning their new third tier Conference League trophy in 2024/25.
But, the Blues must wait for the latest successes - and indeed those on the horizon - to be reflected financially following recent decline.
The Budapest-based Football Benchmark recently published its 10th annual Football Valuation Report, which ranks European clubs based on their enterprise value (EV).
Essentially, this is the total value of a club's equity plus its net debt.
How football clubs should be valued is something that has caused debate amongst owners and investors, but EV is a common way of measuring the value of any business.
In Chelsea's case, overall since the publication of the first report in 2016, they have displayed a healthy 108 percent increase in EV to a new figure of €3,016,000,000 (£2.5bn). However, ranked against Europe's other top clubs, they have fallen three places below rivals Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and 2025 Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain.
Their year-on-year change from 2024 to the latest findings was actually an eight percent decline, making them the only member of the top 10 based on EV to fall this year.
However, Reach PLC's business of football writer Dave Powell explains how this is soon set to change for the better with the upcoming Club World Cup and Champions League campaigns as major financial boosters.
"The investment thesis behind Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital’s acquisition of Chelsea was that through significant investment in the transfer market for a certain type of player, allied with the fortune that came with having so many academy prospects of pure profit to sell, and tangible assets to move around for paper profits, that it could just about come off.
"Chelsea dropping on the Football Benchmark EV list isn’t a huge surprise, nor will it be of any real concern to the club’s owners. This is not a short-term investment play, it is very much long term," he explains.
With the total value of all of the club's players estimated to be £813m as of March 2025, Powell continued: "The high value of the squad actually lifts them up perhaps higher in the list than they otherwise would have been, with other metrics such as stadium ownership, with the club still tethered to Stamford Bridge for the foreseeable future, and profitability impactful.
"But the decline of eight per cent year-on-year, the largest among clubs in the top ten of the list, will likely flip back into positive territory by the time the next report is published.
"The club is back in the Champions League, and that could deliver revenues of £100m plus with a successful run, and more than £50m for even a poor run when factoring in additional matchday revenue.
"The FIFA Club World Cup, however much it may have been lampooned in some quarters of the media after something of an inauspicious start in the face of uncompetitive games and struggles to shift tickets at the price point organisers had in mind, will be important for Chelsea, in terms of both exposure and finance."
Maresca's men kicked off against LAFC with two more group stage fixtures afterwards against Flamengo and ES Tunis. Their prize?
"They will get access to some £50m for their participation, about 4.5x what they would get for a pre-season tour, and the nature of the competition and increased exposure will lead to greater commercial value," Powell says, adding: "Success could see them climb to some £90m in revenue.
"When factoring in the competition, a return to the Champions League and what has been a remarkably successful navigation of the Premier League’s PSR rules, it is likely Chelsea’s EV will improve as a result, although the qualification of Tottenham Hotspur for the Champions League, and the success of Paris Saint-Germain in winning it this year, means that they may not actually be able to climb the list, but will close the gap on some of their rivals across Europe."